Cities’ ticketing policies differ
Lakeway police weigh each stop, while Bee Cave officers stick to uniform standard.
If you get pulled over for a traffic violation in Lakeway or Bee Cave, what happens next may be different depending on which officer makes the traffic stop.
Lakeway Police Chief Todd Radford said he lets his officers determine when a traffic stop results in a warning or a citation. There could be several determining factors, Radford said, from the severity of the issue to extenuating circumstances.
“We decided a few years back that we wanted to give the guys a daily activity log that laid out what they would do day to day, with the requirement that they make a certain number of traffic stops in a day,” Radford said. “How they dispose of those stops is completely up to them. We did want them to actively enforce traffic code, but that’s amongst the many things they do during the day.”
Officers try to make three stops a day in Lakeway, in between answering calls and making house checks and other work during a shift. In 2014, Lakeway officers made 12,547 traffic stops, with 11,281 resulting in a warning and 4,983 resulting in a citation. Most of those citations were given for speeding, with expired licenses and registration stickers ranking as the second- and third-most frequent citation-worthy violations. Some stops result in multiple citations.
“There are a lot of circumstances officers have to take into (account),” Radford said. “The reason they’re speeding might be because they’re having a medical issue and they’re trying to get home. … There’s no blanket policy that everybody gets a ticket or a warning.”
In Bee Cave, Chief Gary Miller wants his officers to operate from a uniform standard.
“Starting January of this year, we put in place a department tolerance level for violations as opposed to each officer having their own tolerance level,” Miller said via email. “We felt for consistency, we should establish a department standard. In residential or school areas, we cite at 5 miles over the (speed) limit, and on major highways or roadways, we cite at 8 miles over. We also discussed other violations and came to agreement on them.”
It’s illegal in Texas to set citation quotas for officers. If a city makes any more than 30 percent of its income from traffic citations, 100 percent of the citation revenue goes to the state, Bee Cave Police Chief Gary Miller said.
Miller said officers still have discretion in situations where there are extenuating circumstances, or in instances with multiple violations, an officer might ticket for one offense and issue a warning for another.
Miller said the department “encourages” warnings for violations such as tail lights being out, since drivers may not be aware of such mechanical issues.
In 2014, Bee Cave officers made 4,544 traffic stops, with 4,277 resulting in warnings and 1,692 citations. Miller said his officers will rarely make a stop that doesn’t result in at least a warning. But, Miller said, people want traffic enforcement — particularly in residential neighborhoods where people come speeding through the streets.
“That’s the top complaint easily,” Miller said. “The people who live here have figured out how to use residential areas as a shortcut from one major thoroughfare to another.”